Ask Lyra

1) Because Steven Universe is on hiatus.

2) Well, I said pictures, but really it was more like HD quality video cut up into individual frames until it maxed out the memory on my phone. And no, absolutely nothing interesting.

3) B says it’s harmless. “An ancient proto-lifeform that evolution left behind.” But I don’t like it. Every time I looked at it I felt uneasy.

Okay… Okay so, why did Gerald reach for the stolen lockbox? That thing had sat there for untold decades, maybe centuries! He couldn’t wait two minutes to finish pulling up Pinkerton and Rainart? They could have helped him get it! Instead he dislodged it and it sank into the abyss.

If from a writer’s perspective the lockbox needed to be lost (which I would understand perfectly), why not something that doesn’t make Gerald look like an idiot? Here’s an idea: Gerald does retrieve the lockbox, but Pinkerton and Rainart are too heavy to lift. So he uses the lockbox, heavy with gold, as a counterweight to help lift Pinkerton and Rainart back up (Pink and Rain on one end of the rope, treasure on the other, ledge as the fulcrum). Then, when all three are safe, they go to pull the lockbox back up, but it slips out of the rope and then it’s lost.

That way, Gerald would have looked both selfless and smart for literally using the treasure to save his friends!

Lyra: It’s not like I haven’t been to Rainbow Falls four times before.

Bon-Bon: I’ve been seven, but never outside of a public event.

Lyra: Seven?

Bon-Bon: Well, I try to go every year, but it doesn’t always work out.

Lyra: I guess it might be nice to visit during a lull.

Bon-Bon: And travel shouldn’t be too expensive off-season! Oh, I can’t remember the last time I went camping!

Lyra: Alright! I’ll put that down as maybe!

1) It’s fine. If it really bothered me I would have just ignored it.

2) Could you cast the spell on the spell? Identify the identification spell.

3) And Knuckles! It’s a good joke, yeah. But I genuinely thought having Dante in Nocturne was pretty cool. I mean, in the end he amounted to nothing as far as the title is concerned. But it was a solid attention grabber.

4) I don’t know. That sounds kinda dumb. And a lot of wasted effort. Why not just leave a few Reapers behind in each solar system to ensure space travel never happens? I’m not saying being dumb means it’s impossible, or that it couldn’t still happen. But it would be dumb.

So, originally I wasn’t going to post about the whole peeing part of that last dream because: A) It’s awkward, 2) It’s embarrassing, and Sea) I didn’t want that part of the dream to become the focus of the post. Which is evidently what happened anyway. I only even mentioned it because the post seemed a little short without it. But, since that’s what everyone seemed interested in-!

It wasn’t just a side part of the dream. There were several sequences of me trying to pee as a dude and I kept hitting the toilet seat. And this guy, who would only show up while I’m in the bathroom, would coach me about peeing. And he wasn’t just on the other side of the stall or anything, he was literally standing right next to me watching me pee. One time in particular he was even having a conversation with someone else while I’m focusing on trying to keep it in the bowl. And I’d lose control and spray the side and I’d just hear “Narrow! Come on, narrow!“ Straight and narrow, that’s what he’d say. Like two settings on a garden hose nozzle. 

So there. I’m going to go sit in the corner and turn red while regretting having wrote and posted this.

Had another dream. This one was about going out to catch-and-release rabbits. I was really young, but Bon-Bon wasn’t? Anyway, we would grab the rabbits, they weren’t very fast for some reason, and feed them carrots. Then we’d let them go. I don’t remember there being anything else to it. Maybe they were sick and we were trying to help them?

But then I saw a pony acting like a rabbit. So I caught the pony and fed them carrots, and then they stopped acting like a rabbit. They said they were a nun and they lived out in the forest. When I tried to tell Bon-Bon, she wanted nothing to do with them. So I head into the forest with the pony and we find an old, abandoned church, and she’s all like: “What happened here?“ And it never got that far, but the dream seemed to be implying that she was from the past or something. And that Bon-Bon knew the church was abandoned and that’s why she didn’t want to get involved.

There also seemed to have been some side thing going on where I was turned into a colt and some other colt was trying to teach me how to pee accurately. Something about contracting muscles to narrow the stream for more control? Anyway, when I woke up I had to pee. But is that a… is that a thing?

1) Well, I’m glad you like the place. We went there together once! We have not decided where to go yet, no. Knowing how our plans usually go, the whole thing will probably fall in on itself and we’ll go nowhere.

2) You’re not about to make an inappropriate peer-to-teen choice behavior, are you?

3) Bon-Bon: I think you have the wrong address. But why is this so common?

4) Thanks! I appreciate it! Always nice to hear from a fan!

5) Yes! As was mentioned in a previous post. I say Substance specifically because most of what I did were the VR missions.

1) You wouldn’t expect it from the name, or at least I wouldn’t, but Taste of Seaddle. That is, unless you want to spend a bunch of bits somewhere fancy.

2) Yes… I mean, every other Lyra’s last name is Heartstrings, so… But I have no evidence proving it’s mine…

3) Only Substance. I’ve watched a lot of the first and second, and some of the third and Revengeance (if that counts), but I’m not a huge Metal Gear fan. Not really a huge stealth fan, to be honest. Let’s just say the novelty of sneaking around wore off quite some time ago for me.

4) A spell that’s used to study spells. That does seem fitting for you. I guess the next step would be learning how to cast it?

The Secret World is… something. It’s an MMO that falls on the Guild Wars side of the mechanical spectrum. That is, a crucial, limited number of abilities you can access at any given time (but can switch) vs. the WoW-style of an abundance of abilities, but most of them range between situational to useless unless you spec into them. The GW-style tends to make combat much harder than WoW-clones, but also more interesting and engaging to play.

Much like Star Wars: The Old Republic, a major focus of the game is in storytelling. Where Secret World has a leg up is in atmosphere and the characters. I’ve yet to finish the first area (I’m in the third map for it), but I can tell you definitively that the characters you meet, what they’re doing, and how they interact with one another is so much more interesting than anything I witnessed in SWTOR.

However, and this is my largest issue with the game. It’s unoptimized as all get-out. Even after playing Archeage, I’ve never seen an MMO this bad. Just logging into the game takes 1.2 million kilobytes (on DX9 with the sliders on 0). And I’ve witnessed memory leaks drag that as high as 1.6 million. I say witnessed, because I know it can get worse, but I never got the chance to see how bad it can get before it crashed my entire computer. I now periodically monitor the game in my Task Manager and reboot if memory usage gets too high.

You’ll also have to frequently tab out or use the game’s built-in web browser to look up what you’re supposed to do, because a lot of the game’s puzzles are ridiculously convoluted. And can bug. I’ve yet to encounter a bug that halted progression entirely. But I’ve had to wait, or repeat steps, or in one instance even log out of my character and back in to get the mission to advance.

I got the game on sale, and it has certainly been worth the price in story and character interaction alone. And as I understand it the game used to be a lot harder than it is now. But it’s still pretty hard.

Edit: I’m looking forward to Bladestorm: Nightmare releasing on Steam!

1) Beneath the skin… We are already… ONE.

2) Well, I hope so.

3) Sure. In that strange Shadow game with the out-of-place gun mechanic that this picture was based on, there was even a level where you could work with Espio. From what we saw, seemed like a supportive relationship.

4) I saw a bunch of it. Wasn’t really impressed.

5) I am! It’s me! The entire state of Michigan says so!

1) Would you believe there are ponies who have memorized that bit of sentence vomit?

Incidentally I own Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, but I only ever did the section on the ship and the VR missions. I already knew how most of the story went and I really didn’t care.

2) Tootsie: What’s a flask?

Lyra: It’s… uhm… One of those little glass science-things, right?

Bon-Bon: It’s just a container for holding liquid.

3) Well, I guess I celebrated by starting to play The Secret World. More of a coincidence than celebration, though.

4) Okay. That would have deflated by now, right?

5) Well, I don’t really like Silver. At all.

What about ShadowxEspio?

Okay, so last night I had a dream- not a nightmare- and it was strange. I don’t remember how it started, but an old foalhood friend of mine and I, as adults, were in a play. It took place in a naval academy through three sets- all of which were set up at once- and we and the other actors would move between the sets as appropriate through, like, prop walls.

I seemed to be replacing some other actor. And my character was trying to propose to my friend’s character. We both loved each other, but my friend’s character was, I think, worried I was trying to advance our relationship too fast or something. There were some religious undertones and her character was very specific about wanting to get married for the right reasons. But she was about to leave the academy for some long voyage, and I couldn’t go for some reason.

Anyway, the whole thing eventually leads up to the big final scene where the center set turns out to actually be a secret forth set, as the walls of the building lower to reveal that the stairs were really the gangplank to board the ship. And my character and her character have our last conversation about love and marriage. And I remember my character said something along the lines of:

“I don’t feel that you will have changed when you get back. But the world will have.“

And that lead into a sorrowful, musical number for the ending, where it’s implied that their character leaves. And then everypony started clapping and the play was over and we all just kinda left the set to talk to the audience or something? I woke up soon after.

Mare, though. I wish I remembered that song. I remember it being really emotional and good.

Edit: Oh, and she and I were the lead singers of the song.